With many thanks to the inspiration of Claudia’s recipe and Karen’s recipe, I present to you our own unique take on stollen. We didn’t ice it this year, nor cover it with powdered sugar, but it’s certainly stollen.
I’ll present the recipe, as it is … but I’ll trust that you already know how to make bread, because you’ll need to use your own judgment about quantities of flour. Also, keep in mind that this is supposed to be a bit on the bitter side, in a way: in other words, it doesn’t contain dried blueberries (as I’d initially wanted).
Stollen
- 4 cups warm water
- 1.5 Tbsp dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup candied citron
- 1/2 cup glaceed cherries
- 1/2 cup raisins or dried currants
- 1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
- 1 cup almond meal (blanched & ground almonds)
- 1/2 cup oat bran (optional, I suppose)
- Strong, wholemeal wheat flour
- Proof your yeast, along with the sugar.
- In a large bowl, mix in all the rest of the ingredients except the flour.
- Mix in enough flour to give yourself a good, kneadable dough.
- Knead until your dough has the appropriate texture – it will be somewhat grainy, and won’t form “windowpanes” because of the almond meal, but it will still be somewhat smooth & elastic.
- Shape into 4 small loaves, place into loaf pans, and let rise until more than doubled in size.
- Bake.
Of course, you’re free to apply icing, or powdered sugar, or whatever … for us, we’ve just been eating it without any of the extras. We’re going to try to track down our neighbors again, to gift them with a loaf … but, well, you know how it is: living in a “convenience” flat means that you never can tell when your neighbors are home. We’ll see – they may have to wait for the next batch.
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Looking good! Daring to use just the whole wheat flour.. I don’t think I could get away with that in my family.
Simply love your addition of almond flour!
“Bitter” isn’t the only word I’d use to describe the stollen, and the inclusion of almond flour. It’s …almondy? It’s such a satisfyingly sweet bread, but it’s not sticky-sweet. It reminds me much more of German pastries; Americans have a well-developed sweet tooth and sometimes can find German pastries only so-so, because they expect them to be much sweeter. This is one of those breads that capitalizes on flavors other than sweetness — bitterness of citrus peels, a round graininess of almond, piquant sparkles of dried apricot — a complex flavor that is delicious.